Now there are two: Journalists to compete separately for English and French awards for excellence in covering workplace mental health
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LONDON, ON, Oct. 16, 2018 /CNW/ - A Canadian award for excellence in reporting on mental health issues in the workplace, introduced in 2016, will now be run in separate French and English versions – each with a $1,000 prize.

Journalists working in either language previously competed for a single award, known in English as the Mindset Award for Workplace Mental Health Reporting and in French as le prix En-Tête pour le reportage en santé mentale au travail.

The awards are named for the English and French versions of Canada's leading guide to mental health reporting, written and published by the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma. The guide is called Mindset in English and En-Tête in French. More than 7,000 copies have been distributed to newsrooms and journalism schools across the country since 2014.

Now the Forum will run parallel competitions in French and English, with separate juries and prizes.

"This was made possible by the generosity of the sponsor, the Great-West Life Centre for Mental Health in the Workplace," said Forum president Cliff Lonsdale. "There are differences between the journalistic styles and traditions of English and French media in Canada. Having two equal awards, with separate juries working in their own first language, levels the playing field and enlarges it as well."

The 2018 Mindset award will be presented at the awards gala of the Canadian Association of Journalists in Winnipeg on May 4, 2019. The En-Tête award will be presented in Montreal the following day at the awards gala of la Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec.

The competitions will be open to journalists writing or broadcasting in the designated language anywhere in Canada, with submission of work first published or broadcast in Canada during 2018 to be made between January 21 and February 15, 2019.

"These awards will be given to both English and French journalists who excel in ethical and stigma-free reporting on mental health issues in the workplace," said Mary Ann Baynton, Program Director, the Great-West Life Centre for Mental Health in the Workplace. "There has been an increase in reporting on mental health stories across the country in recent years, and we sponsor this award because we want to help encourage integrity in journalism and to share these stories more widely."

Development and production of Mindset and En-Tête was supported by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, with funding provided by Health Canada, and by CBC News. The Forum has editorial control of content.

"Despite the growing attention mental health has received in the past few years," Mr. Lonsdale said, "it remains very much the poor relation in our health care system. Yet pretty much every Canadian, including many journalists themselves, will be affected by mental illness at some point in their lives.

"We encourage journalists to engage with this issue as energetically as they do any other, treating the people involved with empathy and respect. It's no longer a no-go area for serious journalistic enquiry."

This pair of awards is intended to set the pattern for an expansion of the Mindset and En-Tête awards family as more sponsors are found. New awards will focus on reporting on other topics addressed in the guides, such as youth mental health, suicide and the mental health of Indigenous peoples.

The Forum is an educational charity concerned with the physical and emotional wellbeing of journalists, their audiences and those on whom they report. Its work is supported by The Globe and Mail, CBC News, Radio Canada and Cision.